Today (April 25th), our statewide paper, the Casper Star
Tribune, carried a front page article on a previously unknown
Jurassic carnivore. The find was occurred near Medicine Bow,
Wyoming, last summer, and has been dated to 140 mya.
This was Bob Bakker's crew and site.
They were uncovering the tail of a diplodocus when they "found
this fossil kind of nestled in with a lot of those bones". The
remains included a thumb, wrist, claws, and "massive" forearm.
The arms are said to be much larger than an Allosaurus.
The estimated size is 36 feet in length and "about 7 feet
from the hip up" (their wording, not mine).
The arm was described as "incredibly robust" and having a large
girth.
Tho found with a diplodocus, Bakker feels the carnivore was
not feeding on it. Rather, that both were already dead when
a flood covered them up.
The find has been nicknamed "Maggie". It has not been otherwise
been formally named.
Bakker said one interesting thing about the recovery of the
find was that were lumps of limestone on the bones. They
licked it, and he said the mouth's enzymes softened the
limestone enough for removal.
The find is on display at the Glenrock (Wyoming)
Paleontological Musuem, open Monday through Saturday, 1 - 5,
1-307-436-2667. The museum has a web page at
http://www.trib.com/GLENROCK/page6.html
but does not have a picture of the remains. There is an email
contact listed there.
Unfortunately, altho the Tribune has a web site, this article
did not appear on it. A shame since there's a Bakker drawing
of a pair of the new creatures duking it out, along with a
photo with the claw and an Allosaurus arm bone for comparision.
The photo has a dollar bill for scale, and the claw appears
almost twice the length of the dollar. The base of the claw
appears about two thirds the length of the dollar.
Hopefully my account will suffice.